St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-05-12
GENERAL GRANTS ENGLISH.
Mark Twafn's Reply to Matthew Ar
no1dss Criticism.


nold's Criticism.
At tue annual reunion of the Army
and Navy Club of Connecticut, April
~, Mark Twain spoke as follows:
will detain you with only just a
few words-justa few thousand words
and then give place to better man
if he has been created. Lately great
and honored author, Matthew Arnold,
has been finding fault with Gen.
Grants English. That would be fair
enough, may be, if the examples of i'm
perfect English averaged more in
stances to the page in Gen. Grants book
than they do in Mr.. ArnOld's criticism
upon the book-but they don't. 1t
would be fair enough, may be, if such
instances were commoner in Gen.
Grants book than they are in the
works of the average standard author
but they aren't. In truth, Gen.
Grants derelictiOns in the matter of
grammar and constructions are not
more frequent than are such derelic-
tons in the works of Il majority of the
professional authors of our time and of
all previous times -authOrs as exclus-
lively and painstakingly trained to the
literary trade as was Gen. Grant to
the trade of war. This is not ran
dom statement: it is fact, and easily
demonstrable. have at home book
called ''Modern English Literature, Its
Blemishes and Defects" by Henry HI.
Breen, F. S. A., cOuntryman of Mr..
Arnold. In it l find examples of bad
grammar and slovenly English from
the pens of Sydney Smith, Sheridan,
Hallam, Whateley, Carlyle, both Dis
raelis, Alison, Junius, Blair, Macaulay,
Shakespeare, Milton, Gibbon, Southey,
,Bulwer, Cobbett, Dir. Samuel Johnson,
Trench, Lamb, Lander, Smollet, Wal
pole, Walker (of the dictionary,
Christopher North, Kirk White, Mrs.
SigOurney, Benjamin Franklin, Walter
Scott and Mr.. Lindley Murray, who
made the grammar.
In Mr.. ArnOld's paper on Gen.
Grants book we find a couple of gram
NAUTICAL crimes and more than several
examples of very crude and slOvenly
English-enough of them to easily
entltle him to a lofty place in that IL
lustriOus list of delinquents just named.
The following passage, all by itself,
ought to elect him "Meade suggested
to Grant that he might wish to have
had been serving with Grant in the
West. He begged him not to hesitate
if he thought it for the good of the SER
vice. Grant assured him that he had
no thought of moving him, and in his
memoirs, after relating what had pass
ed, he adds" etc. To read that pas
man dizzy, to read it four times would
make him drunk.
Gen. Grants grammar is as good as
but if this were not so, Mr..
Breen would brush that incOnsequen
tial fact aside and hunt his great
book for far higher game. Mr.. Breen
makes this discriminating remark :
''TO suppose that because a man is a
poet or historian he must be correct
In his grammar is to suppose that an
architect must be a Joiner, or physi-
clan a cOmpOunder of medicines" Mr..
Breen's point is well taken. If you
should climb the mighty MatterhOrn
to look out over the Kingdoms of the
earth, it might be il pleasant incident
to find strawberries up there; but,
Great Scott, you don't climb the Mat
terhOrn for Strawberries.
l don't think Mr.. Arnold was quite
wise, for he well knew that that Bri-
ton or American was never yet born
who could safely assault another mans
English; he knew as well as he knows
any thing, that the man never lived
whose English was flawless. Can you
believe that Mr.. Arnold was immOdest
enough to imagine himself an excep-
ion to this cast-iron rule-the sole ex-
,eptiOn discOverable within the three
'r four centuries, during which the
English language proper has been in
existence? No, Mr.. Arnold did not
imagine that; he merely forgot that for
/ moment he WAS moving into glass
house, and he had hardly got fairly in
before Gen. Fry was shivering the
)anes over his head.
People may hunt out what micro
cOpic notes they please, but, after all,
he fact remains and cannot be dis
edged that Gen. Grants book is "a
,reat (and in it's peculiar Department.
Unique and unapproachable literary
masterpiece. In their line, there is no
higher literature than those modest,
imple "memoirs." Their style is at
east hawless, and no man can improve
lpon it; and great books are weighed
nd measured by their style and matter
lot by the trimmings of their gram
mar. There is that about the sun
Which makes us forget his spots; and
when we think of Gen. Grant our pull
es quicken and his grammar vanishes; ,
We only remember that he is the simple
older who, all untaught of the silken
phrase makers, linked words together .
With an art surprising the art of the
choOls, and put into them Il something
which will still bring to American ears J,
s long as America shall last, the roll .
f his vanished drums and the tread of .
lis marching hosts. What do we care :
Or grammar when we think of the man
hat put together that thunderous :
hrase, unconditional and immedi-
tie surrender!" And those others: 81
rOpOse to move Immediately upon
our works !" 81 propose to fight it I
ut on this line if it takes all summer" \
Ir. Arnold doubtless claims that that
ist sentence is not strictly grammati-
al; and yet, nevertheless it certainly t
id wake up this nation as hundred d
lilliOn tons of A l, fourth proof, hard .
oiled grammar from another mouth
Duldn't have done. And finally we :
ave that gentler phrase that one :.
hitch shows You another true side of
he man; shows that in his soldier
cart there was room for other than
Dry war notices, and in his tongue
le gift to fifty phrase them: ''Let us
ave peace"